


always waiting

by The_Resurrection_3D



Category: Fangbone! (Cartoon)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Gen, Post-Season/Series 01 Finale, Sibling Rivalry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 19:43:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16939500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Resurrection_3D/pseuds/The_Resurrection_3D
Summary: Then again, a lot of problems lie here, in this angry silence.





	always waiting

**Author's Note:**

> Anyone who's followed me on tumblr for awhile will know this is/was part of a larger project focusing on the clone boys, since the finale left a lot of unanswered. Deleted it for dumb reasons I won't disclose, but this and a few chapters posted on tumblr are all that remain of it online. 
> 
> I've been in my feelings over deleting content / fandom histories for awhile, so I've decided I'm going to start importing stuff over from tumblr and ffnet. This obviously has plot stuff that won't go anywhere, but I think you can understand the salient point of it well enough anyway.

With the journal tucked under his arm, Borb leaves his brother to snore and steals into the hall, tip-toeing past the dungeon doors now decorated with monochrome pictures and randomly-colored scribbles and name tags, letters the teeth of smiling yellow paper faces, as if they were merely staying in the hall of a college dorm.

From each door comes the sounds of heavy snoring, of spring squeaks as bedfellows re-adjust position. A cool breeze blows through the open ribs of the monster whose carcass houses them all – had housed his father, too, a fact Borb pushes to the back of his mind as he rounds th –

A door opens.

Borb blanches, pressing himself against the cold stone wall because he _knows_ who it is, even before his protracted yawn confirms his identity.

Borb wishes he still had the toe, if only so he could phase through the walls – or maybe even meld _him_ into the walls, a swift end to this whole debacle.

Footsteps, coming towards him. Cursing under his breath, Borb whips his head about, searching frantically for any escape.

A vent cover. _Bingo._

Borb bites the notebook betwixt his teeth and rakes his hands down the wall, looking for a stone uneven enough for purchase. Once he does, he scrambles up the stones like a spider, grip held only through sheer force.

The footsteps, slow and clumsy, grow only louder as the seconds wear on.

_Maybe he’s only sleepwalking again._

Not gonna risk it. Borb grabs the vent cover by its thick, rusty bars and feels it give ever so slightly as he lets himself dangle. The screws look stripped, if he just had a screwdriver and a rubber band he could -

An electric pulse pounds through his arms, and both he and the vent cover promptly crash onto the floor.

“Ow.”

“Someone there?” his father’s voice (younger, more adenoidal yet unmistakably _his)_ calls. “You alright?”

Borb jumps, catches himself on the shaft’s ledge, and pulls himself inside with the force of a mouse forcing itself out of a trap.

He can hear him calling again – crapcrap _crap_ he should have put the vent cover back on, no matter, he rounds a few corners and hopes the darkness is enough to conceal the trail he’s left in all the dust and grime.

He certainly can’t see behind him to check, but he knows the layout of the hallways well enough, so it can’t be too hard, right?

He only gets lost for about twenty minutes, give or take, so Borb counts that as a win. A coward’s win, sure, but not every battle is worth fighting.

That’s what Borb tells himself, anyway.

When he finally sees the soft cerulean light of the library, striped by its own bars, Borb breathes a sigh of relief – followed quickly by an echoing sneeze, because the eons’ of dust archived inside the labyrinthine ventilation system have turned his nose on like a faucet, so much so he can practically taste all its foul secrets on his tongue. He’d had to take the notebook out of his mouth solely so he could breathe, sticking it instead down the back of his sweatpants.

Once at the vent cover, however, he slips the book between the bar like a note in a locker, listening carefully for a muffled _thud._

Instead, he hears a voice say, “Got it. He gone.”

Borb has never been so happy to hear his brother’s voice. It takes a few kicks, but finally he manages to loosen the cover enough to push it aside and jump down, landing at Toofbreaker’s feet.

A ripping sound, something white extended to him. Borb snatches it up and tries his best to sop up all the excess mucus, before realizing that the material against his face is too sharp to be a napkin.

“ _Did you –_ “ Borb grimaces as he tries to unfold the stained page, but breathes another relieved sigh as his inspections finds a once-virgin page. “At least you didn’t _ruin_ any of my hard work.”

“I not stupid,” Toofbreaker snaps as he throws the notebook into his brother’s chest. “You welcome.”

“ _You’re_ welcome, Toofbreaker, _you’re._ You. Are.”

“You be sorry when I bash _your_ head in like robin’s egg.”

An exaggerated huff. Borb knocks Toofbreaker’s shoulder as he passes him, stealing towards the computer console now currently occupied by a mound of orange fur.

“Least I am no coward.”

Borb stiffens.

“Oh, like you’re any better,” he quips back, harshly dusting off the smut clinging to his clothes. “What did you do this time, strangle him until he passed out?”

“Least I am strong enough to strangle!”

Borb bites down on his outrage and instead spins again on his heels, merely grousing, “I don’t have time for this,” as he bats the Floyd the cat off the keyboard.

Borb falls down into the wooden chair as the computer begins to boot up with a dim blue light.

Long moments unfurl between them, punctuated only by the loud, tinny clicks of the old hard-drive.

“Thank you for the – uh, napkin,” Borb says finally, arms still crossed, face still etched in a harsh rictus.

Toofbreaker shrugs.

“Did he see it was you?”

“No.”

“Good.”

They lapse back into silence. When the computer is done yawning to life, Borb fishes his ear buds out his pocket and plugs them in, pulling up his usual podcast as he props the notebook open against the monitor.

Bored, Toofbreaker pulls a slim volume down off the closest of the nearly two hundred bookshelves, putting it back just as quickly. The letters still crawl across the page like frenzied ants, and with all the legibility, too.

He’s been meaning to ask his brother to teach him – Fred Bone, however much nicer a teacher, would assume the jumbled moon-speak he pours over with such relish is as easy to take up as a sword.

Borb, he’s sure, would at least understand his needs, even if he would also mock him relentlessly every step along the way.

But therein lies the problem, doesn’t it?

Borb seems currently unaware of his sibling’s plight; the only sound from him is the furious scribbling of his pen, the jiggling of his leg.

He doesn’t even know what he’s actually listening to, Toofbreaker realizes. He’s not sure why, but the fact that he’s never felt the desire to ask seems...wrong, a tiny scratching at the part of his brain that senses danger, even before he does.

But why? He’s never had a problem with their – well, their _non_ -relationship in the past. Not much, anyway.

Then again, a lot of problems lie here, in this angry silence.


End file.
